Polk Stormwater Fee Dead for Year

Saturday

Feb 2, 2013 at 4:55 AM

Plans to impose a first-ever stormwater fee in unincorporated Polk County are dead for this year, County Manager Jim Freeman said Friday. A stormwater fee, which is used in Lakeland, Winter Haven and other cities around the state to pay for projects to reduce lake and river pollution, was proposed and rejected by the County Commission last year because of public opposition and questions about the proposal.

By TOM PALMERTHE LEDGER

BARTOW | Plans to impose a first-ever stormwater fee in unincorporated Polk County are dead for this year, County Manager Jim Freeman said Friday.

A stormwater fee, which is used in Lakeland, Winter Haven and other cities around the state to pay for projects to reduce lake and river pollution, was proposed and rejected by the County Commission last year because of public opposition and questions about the proposal.

Commissioners were poised to consider it again this year.

Commissioner Todd Dantzler last month pushed for appointment of a committee to deal with the questions surrounding the fee to pro-vide answers before the budget is proposed next summer.

But during Friday's agenda study session, Freeman said it still wasn't clear to him what the committee's mission would be.

He explained there are two aspects to the fee. One is the science and engineering behind setting pollution limits and designing projects to reduce the pollution.

The other is financial, which involves figuring out how to structure the fee.

One idea that was floated by Commissioner Ed Smith was to set up a countywide fee, which would involve persuading the cities in Polk to abandon their fees.

Freeman said although he has not discussed the idea with managers in local cities, he said he was skeptical they'd buy it.

Commissioner George Lindsey wondered whether some kind of hybrid program involving Polk and any cities that wanted to participate were possible.

"Stormwater is mainly an urban issue, not a rural issue,'' he said.

Dantzler said Freeman should ask the managers, and if they are not interested, the county should go its own way.

Dantzler said he didn't object to delaying the fee another year if that's what it takes to come up with a good proposal.

Freeman said he will have a better answer from the city managers by the time the commission holds its annual retreat March 6 and 7.

Discussion of the stormwater fee is on the retreat agenda, Freeman said.

County commissioners have been discussing the idea of imposing a stormwater fee on and off for the past 25 years.

The idea behind the fee is to provide a dependable source of money to deal with studies and projects needed to comply with the county's stormwater permit, issued by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

Otherwise, funding for projects competes with other programs in the general fund budget.

The permit requires extensive monitoring and planning as a prelude to planning projects to solve whatever pollution problems the studies uncover.

[ Tom Palmer can be reached at tom.palmer@theledger.com or 863-802-7535. Read more views on county government at http://county.blogs.theledger.com/. ]